Group Sales & Marketing Director

Surrey / Hybrid UK Travel
Base £110,000 Package

This isn't a role for someone who needs a title to give them authority. We're looking for someone who naturally has it.

We're recruiting a Group Sales & Marketing Director for an established print and creative services group at a pivotal point in its evolution.

This is a senior leadership appointment and a key part of the group's succession planning. Accomplished commercial leader to bring the Sales & Marketing function together under one clear strategy and help shape the next chapter of the business.

And this is where gravitas really matters. You'll inherit an experienced team containing some strong personalities and long-standing employees who know the business, customers and market inside out. They don't need somebody coming in and telling them how to sell from a textbook.

They need a leader they will respect. Someone confident enough to challenge established thinking, but emotionally intelligent enough to know when to listen. Someone who can manage strong characters, create accountability and bring people with them through change – without damaging the relationships and knowledge that have helped make the business successful.

The opportunity

The incoming Director will have the opportunity to influence and shape the future commercial structure rather than simply inherit it.

You'll report directly to the Managing Director and sit on the Senior Management Team, with responsibility across new business, strategic account development and marketing.

Your remit will include:

• Defining and delivering the group's Sales & Marketing strategy
• Leading enterprise-level new business development
• Bringing greater structure, accountability and commercial discipline to the sales function
• Developing a more strategic, consultative and insight-led approach to winning business
• Driving organic growth across key strategic accounts
• Building relationships with senior stakeholders and key customers
• Improving pipeline governance, forecasting, conversion and margin performance
• Developing propositions, pricing strategies and routes to market
• Bringing Sales, Account Development and Marketing together rather than allowing functions to operate in silos
• Coaching, challenging and developing an established commercial team
• Helping recruit and shape the next generation of senior commercial leadership within the group

The wider remit is significant: this person will lead the end-to-end commercial function and work closely with operational and senior leadership teams to ensure commercial strategy can actually be delivered.

Who are we looking for?

• First and foremost, you need presence and gravitas.
• You'll be walking into a successful, established business containing experienced people with strong opinions and considerable history within the organisation. You need to be comfortable challenging people who may have been doing their jobs for many years, while earning their trust rather than simply demanding it.
• You'll know how to manage strong personalities, navigate difficult conversations and hold experienced salespeople accountable without creating unnecessary friction.
• We're looking for someone who:
• Has a proven senior commercial leadership background within marketing services
• Can demonstrate significant sales achievement and profitable revenue growth
• Has personally operated at a strategic new-business level- you're not purely a people manager
• Is credible in front of boards, CEOs and senior client decision-makers
• Has led experienced sales/commercial teams through periods of change
• Understands strategic account development as well as new business
• Is commercially sharp around pricing, margins, forecasting and negotiation
• Understands how Sales and Marketing should work together to generate meaningful opportunities
• Can introduce structure and accountability without creating bureaucracy
• Has the emotional intelligence to understand when to challenge, when to coach and when to listen
• Can unite people behind a strategy and get genuine buy-in rather than compliance

The brief calls for somebody credible at board and executive level who can coach, challenge and develop teams through change while creating greater accountability and collaboration.

Why consider it?

Because very few Sales Director roles offer the opportunity to have this level of influence.

You're joining an established group, not being asked to rescue a failing sales function. There is history, capability, long-standing customer relationships and a strong service proposition already there.

What the business needs now is the right person to bring it all together.

Someone capable of respecting what's been built while being confident enough to change what needs changing.

Someone the board trusts.

Someone the customers believe in.

And, crucially, someone an experienced sales team will want to follow.

If you're a senior commercial leader from the marketing services sector who combines sales pedigree, strategic thinking, emotional intelligence and genuine leadership presence, we'd be very interested in speaking with you.

Ref: 1673608GSD